The 21st Money Weekly Newsletter

Crypto News & Analysis

Coinbase raises US $300 million but will remain a private company. Coinbase is the most popular cryptocurrency exchange in the USA. It may also be one of the top 3 cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. There were reports and rumors that this crypto exchange would become a public entity in the next few weeks. But the President of Coinbase, Asiff Hirji says no, "There’s not going to be an IPO any time soon."

Coinbase successfully raised $300 million through private Series E funding. Many analysts and journalists speculated that an Initial Public Offering (IPO) would be coming shortly after. According to the Coinbase President, their predictions were way off the mark. Mr. Hirji made his remarks, on the Crypto Trader Show, saying at this point in time, "We (Coinbase) have so much to do," and other comments regarding how the company needed to grow. He described the most recent funding as a pre-IPO funding. Although his remark did intimate that an IPO is coming. The answer to the question, when, is still unknown.

Mr. Hirji said that of the 3,000+ cryptocurrencies publicly traded 300 of them are potentially investment worthy. Coinbase is active in only seven cryptos. Mr Hirji stated that the revenue stream of the exchange needs to increase. He continued his statement saying Coinbase should be able to facilitate trading in at least 200 or 300 of the most investment worthy cryptos. This is just one of the things on a list of many things to do before Coinbase would consider going public. Mr Hirji felt the accomplishment of the company's goals could take place within the time frame of one year. This could also be the new time frame for their IPO announcement. As with the progress of many other factors relating to the advancement of the cryptocurrency markets, we will all just have to wait and see.

Forex News & Analysis

Bitcoin continues to hold the line. The crypto currency continues to maintain a value above its lower level of resistance, near US $6,200, throughout this week. The United States Dollar gained value against Bitcoin this week. The USD started the week pairing with Bitcoin at an exchange rate of $6402/ 1 Bitcoin. The pair ended the week exchanging at a rate of $6365 / 1 Bitcoin. The USD recorded a 0.58% increase in value when paired with Bitcoin by the weeks end.

The USD index (.DXY) compares the USD to 6 globally dominant currencies. The USD lost marginal ground when compared to its global counterparts towards the end of the week. The .DXY index recorded a value of 96.58 at the beginning of the week. The Index closed at 96.50 recording a 0.08% loss in value by the week's end.

The GBP gained ground against the USD from the previous week. The dollar ended the week exchanging with the GBP at $1.2971 gaining 0.01% from the previous trading day. The GBP may climb higher as optimism about a smooth Brexit has been reported by the media. The Mexican Peso(MXN) continues to show strength in the marketplace. The MXN ended the week marginally stronger when compared to the GBP, exchanging with the GBP at 25.9731 Pesos / 1 GBP a 0.01% increase in value from the previous trading day.

Crypto Futures News & Analysis

A landmark ruling by the Chinese court propels Bitcoin closer to the hands of mainstream Chinese citizens. The Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration has ruled in favor of Bitcoin. The court has determined that Bitcoin can be viewed as property. Furthermore it is now officially legal for Bitcoin to be accepted as payment for goods and services by Chinese merchants. This event can be looked upon as a milestone accomplishment for the advancement of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

Prior to this court ruling, the Chinese government had effectively banned most Chinese citizens from transactions involving Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, within the borders China. The significance of Bitcoin becoming legal within China is huge. China has the world's largest population of consumers and is the world's #2 economy. Any portion of the Chinese population added to the pool of investors already involved in Bitcoin, will add more liquidity and market presence to the blossoming crypto market.

The Arbitrators decision centered around these fundamental principles of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin has intrinsic economic value,

It can be controlled by the owner,

It has the characteristics of a property,

Paying with or holding Bitcoin is not illegal.

Many have speculated concerning the reason the government imposed the ban in the first place. Some say the ban was imposed to prevent Bitcoin from devaluing the Chinese Yuan. Others speculate that it needed to be controlled by the right people before it was given to the masses. Be that as it may, Bitcoin will be able to be used by all Chinese citizens while they are at home in their living rooms, at some point in the near future.

Bitcoin continues to demonstrate stability. Bitcoin has maintained a value above its lower resistance threshold of US $6,200 for another week. Ending the week at $6365 / 1 Bitcoin

Crypto Stocks & Analysis

IBM is in the headlines once again. IBM goes all in at the poker table. Rolling the dice and proposing to purchase Red Hat Inc. for US $24 billion.

Red Hat describe themselves as a:

"Provider of open source software solutions to develop and offer storage technologies, virtualization, cloud, mobile, operating system, management, and middleware to various enterprises worldwide. It offers infrastructure-related solutions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, an operating system platform that runs on hardware for use in hybrid cloud environments; Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, a software solution that allows customers to utilize and manage a common hardware infrastructure to run multiple operating systems and applications; and Red Hat Satellite, a system management offering that helps to deploy, scale, and manage in hybrid cloud environments. " Yahoo Finance

Most analysts agree the move leaves IBM in a poor financial situation. IBM will be short on cash and will be wishing on the next shooting star, hoping the CEO made the right decision. Its win or lose for Big Blue, the CEO Ginni Rometty has all the chips on the table. She’s hoping the combination of blockchain patents owned by IBM and their new found presence in cloud computing will ring the bell and answer her prayers with a solid revenue source and an end to the 7 years of negative earnings under her leadership.

A sinister dark cloud hangs over this deal casting shadows of uncertainty. Red Hat's stock price was last quoted at $172.24, well below the $190 IBM has proposed to pay to own the company. Analysts are skeptical the deal will happen at the inflated price of $190 a share. Moreover whether the deal happens or not IBM is obligated to fork over $1billion to Red Hat.

Ms. Rometty claims the deal will make IBM the number 1 hybrid cloud provider. A hybrid cloud consists of cloud data storage and computing capabilities. Rometty has bet her continuance as IBM's CEO on the combination of blockchain technology combined with hybrid cloud services. Investors and analysts are doubtful this combination can put IBM back in the black.

This week's Biggest Winners in Cryptocurrencies

1) +120.69% CloakCoin (CLOAK) Started the week at $2.765 Ended the week at $6.102

2) +114.32% Telcoin (TEL) Started the week at $0.00049953 Ended the week at $0.00107058

3) +44.14% Dentacoin (DCN) Started the week at $0.00021880 Ended the week at $0.00031537

4) +39.73% TokenPay (TPAY) Started the week at $1.178 Ended the week at $1.646

5) +32.26% SirinLabs (SRN) Started the week at $0.0747 Ended the week at $0.0988

6) +31.29% Agoras Token (AGRS) Started the week at $0.441 Ended the week at $0.579

7) +29.59% BOScoin (BOS) Started the week at $0.0507 Ended the week at $0.0657

8) +27.87% SelfKey (KEY) Started the week at $0.00633644 Ended the week at $0.00810235

9) +27.53% Mainframe (MFT) Started the week at $0.00846874 Ended the week at $0.0108

10) +26.97% Republic Protocol (REN) Started the week at $0.0330 Ended the week at $0.0419

11) +21.77% Odem (ODE) Started the week at $0.147 Ended the week at $0.179

Crypto Chart of the Week

CloakCoin is an open-source blockchain platform that puts their focus on speed and anonymity in cryptocurrency trading. Its PoW (Proof of Work) block reward is currently 496 coins and stops within seven days while its PoS (Proof of Stake) gives ROI of 6% annual interest. The platform promises fast transactions, with a block limit time of 60 seconds. The transactions are also untraceable thanks to the platform's onion-routing privacy that is set to default. Security is state of the art due to the d-to-end encryption that enable nodes to avoid traffic analysis. The system also uses 25 hops, that utilize symmetric RSA encryption with ECDH key as a back-up.

ArtPro (APT) Sale Starts November 5 Sale Ends December 14 / making it easy for anyone to buy and sell art over the web

Aurum (AURUM) Sale Starts November 5 Sale Ends December 31 / An online marketplace facilitating the auction of jewelry and watches with an opportunity of appraisal by the Aurum service centers specialists

RainCheck (RAIN) Sale Starts November 5 Sale Ends December 5 / Created to influence and measure the high level of online product discovery/research and to connect those findings with the corresponding in-store sales transaction

Sentigraph.io (EMOT) Sale Starts November 9 Sale Ends December 10 / An innovative Early Stage Startup with an objective of helping businesses and individuals gain unique insights, and make good decisions based on the feelings of customers or peers in a social network like Twitter

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